Unions vow to take on workplace reforms

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The ACTU wants June 30 to be a national day of protest
against changes to the industrial system.

Up to 100,000 workers across Victoria will stop work in June for
the first of what is expected to be a series of industrial
showdowns to protest against radical workplace changes proposed by
the Federal Government.

State and regional labour councils across Australia are expected
to join the day of action on June 30, which is being cast as a
massive national rally of workers, the largest in Victoria since
the 1998 waterfront protests.

Skeleton staffing arrangements will be negotiated for hospitals,
power stations and public transport so that the first half-day
stopwork and rally can go ahead in Melbourne. Schools are on
holidays at the end of June but will be affected by protests
planned for August or September.

ACTU secretary Greg Combet told a meeting at Dallas Brooks Hall
yesterday that the proposed laws, expected to be introduced in
August after the Government gains control of the Senate, would
undermine wages, conditions and Australia's tradition of workplace
fairness.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke warned the faithful that Prime
Minister John Howard had underestimated the labour movement.

The former ACTU president told up to 2000 union delegates that
Australians believed in an industrial system judged by an
independent umpire balancing interests of capital and labour. The
proposed changes would give unequal power to management and were
against the national interest, he said.

"There has been no other institution in the community that has
made such a significant contribution to the quality of the life of
this country than the trade union movement," he said.

"Not one person employed in this community does not reflect the
previous work of trade unions... It has been down to the hard work
of trade unions either through direct bargaining, national
campaigns, taking cases to the arbitration commission or arguing
for more equitable federal and state legislation."

Trades Hall Council secretary-elect Brian Boyd said the campaign
committee would meet next week to urge all other state and regional
labour councils to adopt June 30 as a national day of protest.

He said the changes were "being proposed by a government which
wants to cut wages and conditions and destroy collective bargaining
- the strength of organised labour - in favour of giving even more
power to employers".